Professor Gero Steinberg
"A novel coordinator complex that controls bi-directional motility of early endosomes"
Biography:
Professor Gero Steinberg studied Biology in Kiel, Germany and received his Diploma in 1991. Subsequently, he moved to the lab of Prof. Manfred Schliwa, Munich for a PhD on organelle motility and kinesin in the fungus Neurospora crassa . After receiving his PhD in Cell Biology in 1995, Gero continued as a Research Asscoiate in the lab of Prof. Richard McIntosh, Boulder, USA, focussing on motors in the fungi Schizosaccaromyces pombe , Syncephalastum racemosum and Ustilago maydis . Gero returned to Germany in 1997 and accepted a position as an Associate Professor in the Institute for Genetics and Microbiology in Munich, where he established a research group to study dynamic processes and the underlying machinery in the plant pathogen U. maydis . In 2000 Gero joined the Max Planck Institute for Microbiology in Marburg, Germany, where he became Associate Professor in 2001. In 2007, Gero moved to Exeter, UK, to accept a chair in Cell Biology.
Gero's group is using the fungus U. maydis to reveal fundamental principles of motor cooperation in eukaryotic cells. In addition, the group is focusing on the role of membrane trafficking, motors and the cytoskeleton in fungal plant pathogenicity, using the maize pathogen U. maydis, the wheat pathogen Mycosphaerella graminicola, and the ash dieback fungus Chalara fraxinea .